Sister of a Sinner

artist

A SINNER’S LEGACY

The Children of Joe and Nell Billodeaux who fulfilled the prophecy that they would have twelve offspring, this way, that way, all ways.

Dean Joseph Billodeaux—Joe’s illegitimate son by a one-night stand with a woman who planned to shake him down for money. He is adopted by Nell, who believes she cannot have children of her own. Current Sinners quarterback. (Wish for a Sinner)

Thomas Cassidy Billodeaux—a redheaded son who enters the family through an open adoption with a teenage mother. His birth father is Joe’s no-good cousin. He is a kicker for the Sinners. (Wish for a Sinner and Kicks for a Sinner)

Jude Emily Billodeaux—twin of Ann, conceived by in vitro fertilization using eggs purchased from Nell’s sister, Emily. (Wish for a Sinner)

Ann Marie Billodeaux (Annie)—Jude’s quiet twin. (Wish for a Sinner)

Lorena Renee Billodeaux (Lori)—First of Nell’s little frozen babies to be born, one of the triplets. (Kicks for a Sinner)

Mack Coy Christopher Billodeaux—Second of the triplets to be born. (Kicks for a Sinner)

Trinity Billodeaux—Youngest of the triplets and named for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, smallest of the three and in need of a powerful saintly help to survive. (Kicks for a Sinner)

Xochi Maria Billodeaux—child of Joe’s no-good cousin by a young Mexican woman. She is Tom’s half-sister and is adopted into the family after the terrifying deaths of her parents. Her name means blossom in Aztec. (Kicks for a Sinner)

Teddy Wilkes Billodeaux—a child with spina bifida abandoned by his mother at Nell’s health care center and adopted by the family. He believed himself to be Joe’s natural son. (Paradise for a Sinner)

Anastasia Marya Polasky (Stacy)—daughter of Nell’s sister, Emily, and a bogus Polish prince. She becomes a ward of the Billodeauxs upon her parents’ deaths, but is never adopted by her own wish. She arrives on their doorstep the same day as Teddy. (Paradise for a Sinner)

Edith Patricia Billodeaux (Edie)—a normally conceived child, twin of Rex. (Love Letter for a Sinner)

Rex Worthy Billodeaux (T-Rex)—Edie’s twin brother and future Sinner’s quarterback, maybe. (Love Letter for a Sinner)

Chapter One

Junior Polk sat enthroned in one of the legendary Joe Billodeaux’s oversized leather recliners surrounded by that great man’s game balls, his trophies, his vast collection of football memorabilia. In other words, the family den of the Tara-like mansion. He remembered the days when he and the Billodeaux triplets could all fit into that chair and played fearlessly among the priceless artifacts. Now, Junior filled the space fairly well all by himself. Joe’s son, Mack, occupied the other recliner because this was their day as candidates for the NFL draft.

The huge Billodeaux family filled the room, crowding the long sofa and sprawling on the floor. Friends filled every available form of seating from dining room chairs to beanbags dragged from the kids’ bedrooms. The small towheaded Billodeaux grandchildren clamored over each and every one and moved from lap to lap like brightly flitting fireflies. Both had given Junior a hug, and nearly everyone else shook his hand or patted him on the back and wished him luck. While he appreciated their regard, he sought to impress only one person in the room, and that wasn’t the famous Joe Billodeaux.

Joe’s adopted Mexican daughter, Xochi, came up behind him, placed her hands on shoulders that had widened each year as they grew up together, and kissed the top of his head. He felt her warmth flow through him, expanding his heart and rushing through his veins like game day adrenaline. I know the Sinners will choose you, she whispered, giving him some added confidence.

Only the family and their most trusted friends knew Xochi saw auras. Some equated that with seeing the future, which she declared untrue. But, this gift did allow her to read people exceptionally well. Junior wondered if she could see his fear of being chosen last or not at all by a team like the chubby boy he’d once been. How he wished he could take Xochi on his lap and hold her like a prized talisman throughout the ordeal.

She withdrew, her long dark curls caressing the sides of his face. He wanted to grab her soft brown hands to keep them from leaving his body, but Xo took a seat behind him somewhere, probably in the cluster of her many sisters. He could pick out her voice—low and musical—but not exactly what she said. Stupid to believe she might be saying, "Junior Polk, he grew up to be muy guapo." He knew he did not qualify as handsome, not like her brother Mack, who could get any girl he wanted. Junior desired only one.

Junior’s mama, the Billodeaux’s cook and housekeeper, shouted for people to make way as she claimed her seat on the sofa within hugging distance of her son. She carried a huge, brightly decorated clay bowl of guacamole and set it beside a crystal punch bowl holding her fresh, spicy salsa. The family’s butler followed like a minion with a tray full of small bowls to be filled and passed around with handfuls of tortilla chips. The audience had already made inroads into the platter of crispy baked chicken taquitos placed on the coffee table earlier. Ordinarily, Junior would have filled his plate, but his stomach couldn’t handle it at the moment.

That did not stop his mother from taking a larger bowl from the bottom of the stack and filling it with dips, chips, and a garnish of half a dozen taquitos. "For my son who has grown so grande. Soon, he will graduate from college. Soon, he will play for the Sinners."

Junior accepted the bowl and managed a smile. Maybe the guacamole would soothe his roiling innards. He dipped a taquito and raised the green glob to his lips. His mama beamed. "Excellente, Mama." His mother’s cooking, his desire to make her happy, had equaled a childhood body round as a basketball, a sport he was too fat and slow to play.

At the far end of the couch, Mack Billodeaux, lean and fast as a whippet in his time trials, stoked up on baby carrots dipped into hummus from the vegetable tray his Mama Nell always insisted upon serving no matter what the occasion. A woman so petite and fairy-like, she’d earned the nickname Tink, Nell also sat next to her son. Mack appeared discontent, and Junior knew the reason why. When he’d said he wanted to watch the draft at home with his family, Mama Nell had turned her big doe eyes on Mack and waited for him to say the same, so he did. Her son really wanted to be in the thick of things at the actual draft, striding on stage to be swathed in the jersey of the team who chose him. He’d confided that to Junior and blamed him a little for not wanting to go to the big time and have some kickass fun together.

Joe Billodeaux, king of the remote, pointed the device at the huge flat screen set up in front of the fireplace for the occasion. His wife turned on the somewhat smaller television over the mantel so that all could see. Of course, they might have used the home theater room attached to the house for the showing of movies, but this arrangement was cozier. Yes, cozy, Junior liked cozy. He ate some more guacamole as ESPN materialized onto the screens. The audience sat through the usual introductions and explanations of the process, but once the actual draft began, the players selected came out fast with only seven minutes each allowed for a pick. Not ready, lose a turn.

The most likely among the college quarterbacks went first, one, two, three, to the lowest ranked teams. Dallas with the fourth pick and badly in need of receivers called out the name of Mack Billodeaux. A cheer went up in the crowded den. Somebody dropped a paper crown upon his shaggy, long black hair, another small rebellion since Joe and his quarterback brother always wore theirs cropped short.

Mack, son of the awesome Joe, brother of the current Sinners’ quarterback, Dean, had been crafted into the best wide receiver they could make him, and was guaranteed to be a top ten pick. He’d broken with family traditions every way he could by choosing to attend Alabama instead of LSU and refusing to be molded into a quarterback who had to compete with his brother. Junior suspected his secret though. Mack hated being hit on the football field. He would run like a cat with a tail afire carrying the ball and go out of bounds when the hounds of the defense neared. If Junior as a cornerback ever caught up with Mack in a game, he’d hit him hard and pop that ball out, not with malice, but because he wanted to do his job well.

Mama Nell said, At least you won’t be far from home. Joe leaned over her and shook Mack’s hand. Not everyone gets to be a Sinner. Do your best and wait for free agency. Good advice, but Mack had wanted to enter the draft last year as a college junior which would have put him one year closer to that free agency. While his dad might have wavered, his mother did not. All Billodeauxs finished college. Period.

Junior didn’t even ask his parents if he could quit school early to go pro. Each one of them owned a Super Bowl ring presented for courageous services rendered to the Billodeaux family. The rings, earmarked for his education, sat in a safe deposit box to be sold if necessary to pay the fees. No need as it turned out. An LSU sports scholarship came through, a good thing because he wouldn’t have gotten an academic one. His grades were decent, but not brilliant, primarily because Junior Polk cared more about three other things: food, football, and Xochi Billodeaux, but not in that order.

You, said his mama, grasping his cheeks, will be the first in my family to graduate from university. His dad had suggested military service if football didn’t work out, an idea that made his mother cry. He’d craft a good sports career, absolutely he would, and then move on to his carefully considered retirement plans.

The numbers went up and up. No one called for Junior Polk as they had for Mack, now absent, talking on the phone in another room. The Sinners chose twenty-ninth out of thirty-one. Damn Dean Billodeaux for being such a hotshot quarterback that his team always got into the playoffs and won their conference last season. What if they didn’t want him either? He’d go into the second night of the draft after everyone went home from the party. Junior clutched both sides of his snack bowl so tightly it might have snapped. A small hand he knew and loved took it from his grip and set it aside on the coffee table.

Xochi squeezed his fingers and warmth flowed up his arm. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.

Did she remember the last time she’d said those words to him as a girl twice his age? Yes, really, since he’d been five and she’d turned ten when a gang of bullies cornered a pudgy Mexican kid with a cone of pink cotton candy grasped in one hand and a caramel apple in the other. They took his treats and shoved him behind one of the trailers at the street fair celebrating the sugar cane harvest. He had twenty dollars from his mother for rides and food. Mostly, he’d spent his on corndogs and sweet stuff.

His dad had his eyes on the horde of Billodeaux kids, the ones he got paid to protect, and no easy task either since they tended to scatter in all directions no matter what his commands. But, Xochi noticed. His attackers, probably six-graders from the public school who didn’t know him, street kids who came without parents or money to spend, shoved him down into the dirt and damp straw covering a mud puddle. Emptying his pockets of what change remained, they landed a few kicks to his sides and pummeled his soft belly until he barfed up his corndogs and fries, his orange drink, and the deep-fried Twinkie. Then, Xo was upon the bullies like an avenging Aztec goddess, her black curls flying from the scarlet ribbon that bound them, her small fists balled tight and hard. She went right for the head, blackening more than one eye and splitting lips, a fierce fighter whose name incongruously meant blossom. You leave Junior alone!

The cowards ran. At first, he thought the sixth-graders were terrified of a girl nearly their age and very sturdy, but a tall shadow belonging to his father blotted out the hot September sun and cast him into shade from his place on his back, wiggling limbs like a helpless turtle. If the bullies didn’t know him, they did recognize his dad, the ex-Special Forces warrior who guarded the Billodeaux children. Get up, Junior. Stop blubbering if you haven’t broken anything. I’ve told you not to get separated from the troop. Stick around Dean and the older kids.

Junior sat up. His snot mingled with the vomit on his cheese yellow T-shirt with the LSU tiger roaring on the front. He wasn’t a tiger, never would be. Xochi squatted beside him and wiped his face with a handful of paper napkins and a bottle of water she took from her small red backpack. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right, she said as she scrubbed at her own bloody knuckles, skinned on the enemy’s teeth.

Xo didn’t see auras as a child. If she had, his would have glowed with adoration. Junior became a tiger, not for his loving mother or his stern father, but for her. If the Sinners didn’t draft him now, he might have to live far from Xochi. Dios mio, let them choose him!

Number twenty-nine. The New Orleans Sinners have selected Knox Polk, Junior.

Chapter Two

What to do about Junior? Xochi sat in a lawn chair in the shade of one of the ranch’s numerous live oak trees. Her redheaded half-brother, Tom—a kicker for the Sinners—and his lanky, blonde wife, Alix—the team’s punter—lounged on a blanket at her feet. Married not quite a year and still clearly honeymooning, Tom spooned behind Alix and fed her tidbits of pineapple and kiwi from a paper plate. Their intimacy made Xo a little uncomfortable, but she did love the way Tom’s glowing yellow aura blended with Alix’s bright blue to form a lovely shade of turquoise where their heads touched.

Over by the barbecue pavilion, Junior Polk stood in the place of honor next to the Sinners’ retired Samoan cornerback, Adam Malala a master of the umu oven. The celebration of Mack and Junior’s university graduation pig roast quickly became a three swine affair with both the football teams from LSU and ’Bama attending in addition to Sinners players old and new, their families, and a bevy of friends—an outsized affair as always. Adam, using his hands to make a point to Junior, nodded his head. The sun glinted off a few silver strands in Adam’s wild, frizzy mane. They discussed football or maybe cooking while waiting for the pork extravaganza to emerge from the pit. Junior stood by prepared to lift the pigs from the oven, which took some muscle. Not that there wasn’t plenty of that around.

On the other hand, Mack had gone off to the swimming pool with his pals who cavorted in the water, showing off for and ogling his sister and womb-mate, Lorena, who made up the second of the Billodeaux triplets and sat in the lifeguard stand. Long limbs toned from playing volleyball, Lori took a tan like no one else in the family. Her black hair flowed halfway down her back when not bound into a braid like today and had less curl to it than most of the family, only lovely waves. Her eyes were what the people in the nearby town of Chapelle called Billodeaux brown, a particularly rich, dark chocolate shade surrounded by thick lashes. She wore a bikini as if she’d created that style, not too brief and not spilling out of it anywhere, a problem that troubled Xochi with her abundantly curvy body. If Xo spent more time gazing into mirrors, which she did not, she’d see the same eyes, similar hair, but a different kind of beauty.

The LSU guys played shirtless volleyball on the sand court near the pool hoping to lure Lorena into a game. Knox Polk, Sr. prowled between the LSU Tigers and the Crimson Tide in the pool making certain no brawls occurred since the Tide had beaten LSU again this year. Lorena stayed on the stand, blowing her whistle occasionally if the horseplay got too rough and telling the college guys to stay in the deep water and let the little kids have the shallow end. She had no intention of taking sides no matter how the overgrown boys tried to attract her. Having grown up with football players, they failed to impress. Not a problem for Xochi as she was five years too old for this batch of young men. If only Junior thought so, too.

He glanced her way. His vast chest heaved. His violet aura flared around his big, round head like a crown. Not deep purple, not lavender, but the color of juicy ripe plums so sweet you could almost taste them, very becoming with his brown skin, lighter than his mother’s and darker than his father’s almost white complexion. He owned Corazon’s round, brown eyes, puppy dog eyes, or maybe only Xochi thought of them that way since Junior had trailed after her like a pitiful stray from the day she’d punched his tormentors in the face.

Now as the leaves were raked from the earth oven, Junior sent his wide, appealing grin with the small space between his two front teeth her way and flexed his muscles playfully. They were nicely revealed by the purple jersey with the sleeves and tails ripped away. It rode up to expose one row of his six-pack abs. Cutoff jeans with frayed edges flattered his thick, muscular legs. He wore heavy sandals like Adam who motioned for him to help raise one end of the pig and place it on a plank. No tats and closely shorn hair showed his father’s military influence. A lot to like there Xochi admitted to herself as she answered his smile—but young, way too young.

Junior and Adam hefted the pig, took it into the pavilion, and came back for the next. The third piece of pork went by a different route. Raising the plank to their shoulders, they carried it off toward the swimming pool and volleyball court. Children slid down the rock wall and left the bouncy house to follow. Adults joined the procession. Adam began a Samoan chant soon picked up by the crowd. No one had any idea what it meant and didn’t care. Xo couldn’t help herself. She tagged along as Junior once followed after her.

The Crimson Tide stopped splashing. The volleyball game ceased as the two brown men trotted the roasted pig once around the pool and back to the pavilion. As Xo passed Mack, he shouted to her, What was that all about?

If only his aura weren’t the dull orange of ambition. If only Junior’s violet crown didn’t indicate love. I think they are announcing that your graduation dinner is about to commence and to get your butt out of the pool and dry off. Sure enough, she heard Joe Billodeaux banging on an old-fashioned iron triangle over by the pavilion.

Lorena blew a shrill whistle. Pool closed until an hour after dinner. Be sure to wash the sand from your feet in the outdoor shower. She left her perch so fast not a single guy got a chance to grab her around the waist and swing her down. Xo helped Lori herd the small children, buckling sandals, slipping flip-flops onto their feet, and wrapping them in big, white pool house towels before escorting them out, leaving all that gorgeous man flesh to dry off without a female audience.

By the time the sisters arrived at the pavilion, a long row of guests snaked through the grounds like a hungry anaconda. The new grads and their families had been shoved to the front of the line and already sat behind heaping plates. Junior cupped his big hands, making a pretty good megaphone, and shouted, Let Xo and Lori cut in.

A tall, lithe light-skinned man with striking green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses made a gap for them right in front of the pavilion door. Xo smiled her appreciation. So, Connor Bullock is back in town. Have you finished your medical studies?

Eldest son of the Reverend Revelation Bullock, the famed cornerback, and the one who didn’t go into football, nodded. Almost. I start my residency in orthopedic surgery at Ochsner next week. I hoped you might show me around New Orleans when we both have some free time. Johns Hopkins is a fine place to get medical training, but I missed Louisiana—words I never thought I’d say.

The people, the food, the total lack of snow, the state does have its charms.

Its women, Connor added. I hear you sometimes act as a translator at the hospital. If you are over there, have me paged. We might be able to catch a cup of coffee together.

As my partner in the interpreting service, Stacy still does most of the medical interpreting, but I take over when she’s busy. Mostly, I do the business and police work.

Must be interesting.

Not so much. Too many dark auras. Xo moved her eyes away from his penetrating green gaze.

Connor lowered his voice. As a member of the family closest to the Billodeauxs, he knew her secret. I still think you suffer from a neurological condition that could be cured with drugs or surgery.

"Drugs were tried early on. No thanks on the surgery. The only thing that made sense to me were the words of Rosemarie Leleux, our local faith healer. As a Cajun traiteur, she said I had a gift from God and to use it wisely."

Connor twisted one of her black curls around a slim finger. I admit it would be a shame to shave your hair to get inside your head. Tell me what you see when you look at me.

A brilliant orange halo—pride, ambition, self-confidence. Not necessarily bad attributes.

I’m a surgeon so an easy guess.

Letting Lorena go first, they bumped along in the line and reached the stack of plates. Conversation ceased as they made their selections. Steaming roast pork of course, rice dressing, baked beans and French bread, potato salad, even some taro—Cajun barbecues tended to come down heavy on the starches. Xochi made sure half her plate held fresh fruit and green salad. Her curves didn’t need to get any curvier. She’d have to dance off today’s feast.

Puberty had knocked her down like a Mexican lucha libre wrestler. She started early, blossoming out at age eleven, developing a full womanly figure by thirteen, much to the